


Fate is Strange

by profoundfrustration



Category: Life Is Strange (Video Game)
Genre: Alternate Ending, F/F, Third Choice, dramatic and a little bittersweet but mostly ends decently enough
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-12-27
Updated: 2017-12-27
Packaged: 2019-02-22 13:00:55
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,807
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/13167450
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/profoundfrustration/pseuds/profoundfrustration
Summary: A third ending for the game in which Max tries to sacrifice herself to save both Chloe and Arcadia Bay. Instead of fatalism and empty melancholy, we get the power of transcendent love. Felt the need to come up with something after the ending of the game sent me into an emotional down-spiral, punctuated by all the stages of grief and the ultimate conclusion that we were cheated out of something really beautiful.





	Fate is Strange

Fate is Strange

The girl’s bathroom, Blackwell Academy, October 7th 2013.

Max Caulfield stands, shakes a photograph with a smooth motion born of habit, and places it in her bag. The tense set of her shoulders belies the simple beauty of the shot, its electric blue subject still perched on the rim of a bucket.

A boy barges in. Dirty blonde, shaking nervously. Talking to himself, reassuring himself. He owns this school, he can do whatever he wants, he can—

“I hope you checked the perimeter, as my step-ass would say.”

Max knows that voice, better than she knows any other. A few days ago, she didn’t. Or, sort of didn’t. And, it was only sort of a few days ago. Her heart races, even faster than before. Max covers her mouth, hoping her sobbing breath won’t reach the others and ruin everything.

She’s heard this conversation before. A few times. She’s not sure how many. She wants to tune it out, knows what’s coming, but she can’t. Max sinks to the floor, hugs her knees. She’s made her decision; she can’t give in now.

“Where’d you get that? What are you doing? Come on, put that thing down!” There’s fear her tone, but a little bit of defiance too. Chloe. God.

The boy is on edge, screaming in anger tinged with fear. Max knows where the gun is, now, what it will soon do. Chloe is still scared, still defiant.

Nobody would miss you, he says. Nobody would care.

Max is running. She’s crying; she’s not a hero, not a saint. Would this be fucking easy? No. How could it be?

But she’d make the choice, this same choice, every time.

“Get that gun away from me, psycho!”

Max is across the bathroom, nearly at the wall where she—god; what if she mistimed this, there would be no take-backs, that would ruin everything—where Chloe is being held by the boy with a gun.

Max lunges forward. In the corner of her eye, what looks like the blue butterfly again, alighting on a sink.

Time stops.

***

Max sees herself, stumbling forward. She sees Nathan, with his shiny gun and his fancy red coat. She sees Chloe, brave and terrified, against the wall. She feels blood dripping from her nose, sees red, feels the familiar needles in her head. She sinks to the floor behind the stalls among the clutter.

But—but she had avoided this! No powers, no weaseling, no manipulation. The last few days—or whatever they were, at this point—defined her, had catapulted her from kid to adult at breakneck pace, and, as terrible as they were, they were also the best she’d ever had. But she was _done_.

This couldn’t be happening, this couldn’t be happening, this couldn’t—

“Max?”

That voice is way too familiar, familiar from years and years, familiar from a diner full of cruelties in a dreamscape of madness and guilt. She tears her eyes from the tableau in front of her.

And there she is. Max. Again. Same ratty jeans, same too-small sweater, same pink shirt with its little white doe, same messenger bag strapped across her shoulder. She walks forward, leaning down, face full of concern.

“What are you doing?”

Max looks up. The blood is still flowing from her nose; her vision blurs. But that’s definitely her, again.

“You can’t stop me. I’ve made my choice.”

Other-Max cocks her head to the side. “Obviously. But, why?”

“You know why. You have to.”

Her brow furrows. “Do you really think it will work? Everything else you’ve done to interfere,” she gestures vaguely, “only seems to be making things worse. This won’t go any different.”

Max pulls her legs close, her arms hugging them tight.

“I have to try.”

The other Max stands to her full height, looking down at her with a raised eyebrow. Those mannerisms, they were just…different. Maybe not wrong, but not right either. Something shaped her differently, sent her down a different road.

“Do you? And if you consign both Arcadia Bay and Chloe to death? If you break apart the fabric of reality itself and send a storm tearing through the world?”

“It won’t.”

“Why?” The question hangs in the air.

“Because…,” she gulps and takes a breath, “because the problem. It’s me. It’s always been me. And I can fix it by—by making it not me, anymore.”

Other-Max’s brows pull together. “You can’t blame yourself for everything that’s happened. You can’t blame us—” and for the first time, Max sees real emotion behind her eyes, as they tighten, “you can’t _condemn_ us, yourself, to death. Not for them. We don’t deserve to die any more than they do.”

“I know that.”

“Then…then, why?”

Max remembers a hand slowly growing limp in hers, medical machines beeping. A face growing still, curtain of blonde hair falling around it. Tears blurring her vision as she focuses on a photo of times gone by.

“Because I love them,” She says simply. Other-Max pauses, searching for a response.

“I—I don’t understand.” Her voice breaks a little.

"Maybe I don't either, but it's what I have to do."

***

Max sees herself, stumbling forward. She sees Nathan, with his shiny gun and his fancy red coat. She sees Chloe, brave and terrified—

Again. Still frozen. How could she get back, to herself—how could she move forward again? She needed to do it, to do the right thing, to move things to their proper end. Towards her fate. But her head is still spinning, and the blood seems to flow even faster now. So hard to think…

“Miss Caulfield?”

The door to the bathroom swings open. A tall man, somewhat portly, with dark skin and a round face, wearing a suit.

How were they even here? What were they? Figments? Or their spirits, projected through time to talk her down?

“Principal Wells?” She rubs her face; if this is a dream, a time vision, why hide her state? She doesn’t know. It feels wrong to present herself like this. Stupid. Nonetheless, she stands.

“Maxine. I—we—know what you’re trying to do. And it’s understandable, really, commendable even. Blackwell students are expected to excel, to go above and beyond, and you’ve already demonstrated that you’re more than capable of that.” He paused, adjusting his tie, his gaze steady. “But it’s time to give it up. You don’t deserve to die here, Max. None of this is your fault. Please, be reasonable.” There is genuine emotion in his voice, a tone of fatherly care and worry that Max is surprised to find.

“Principal—”

“Miss Caulfield. Blackwell needs you. Arcadia Bay needs you. You need to make the right choice here.”

“I wish I could, Principal Wells.”

“I wish you could too, Max.” A thinner, reedier voice, a voice Max had heard in joy and in heartbreak.

“I guess now it’s my turn to talk you down, huh Max?” Kate’s eyes are red, like they have been for the last few days. One hand toys with the golden cross hanging from her neck, but her eyes are determined.

“Oh, Kate. This isn’t the same. I need to do this Kate, please, please try to understand. I have to, for you, for everyone.”

Kate shakes her head, angrier than Max has ever seen her. “No, Max! I came down because you were a friend, because you were _there_ for me. How can I not be here for you, and not do the same? And how can I keep going if you’re not there for me anymore?”

“Kate, you are strong enough on your own! You have other friends, even if you don’t realize it. And Jefferson, and Nathan, and everyone who torments you will stop after today.” God, Max hoped that were true. It _had_ to be true.

“How do you know?” Kate’s eyes are redder, her tears obvious. Max wants to run to her, to hug her, but she knows that if she does, she will break. And regret it forever. No. She shakes her head, not able to respond.

“You’re such an idiot, Caulfield.”

Another familiar voice, another familiar face through the door, lining up in front of Wells and Kate, nearly touching the other Max’s shoulder in the violent tableau.

“Victoria, why are you here; please, please just let me be.” God, she felt so tired, and her head, pounding harder and harder and harder, the pain growing with each second.

“I meant what I said, Max. You really are probably the coolest person at this shitty school, sad as that is to say. And you’re going to throw it away? You’re going to destroy the potential for every relationship, destroy the potential for a future as a photographer, as an artist? You have a _gift_ , Max, and I can’t just watch you squander it like it’s nothing.”

“Victoria, I don’t know what to say.”

“Say, ‘You’re right Victoria.’” Hands on her hips, she stands there, eyes boring into Max. Max can’t believe what she’s hearing, because, if even Victoria cared, if even she wanted to make things right and for Max to live…

“No.” She points at them, the three of them, staring at her with accusing eyes. “I’ve made my choice. This power was given to me, I don’t know why. But I need to make it right. And this is what I have to do.”

The door opens again. Joyce. She walks up, standing next to Victoria. She opens her mouth to speak.

“No! Listen, everyone, all of you. I’m so, so honored, grateful, that you care so much about me, that you think I’m worth all this. And I don’t know, maybe I am. I hope so. But I can’t—

The door opens, again, and again—Dana, Juliet, Alyssa, Brooke, Daniel. Warren. Even Frank, and David Madsen. They file in silently, filling the small room, flowing around the frozen Max, Nathan and Chloe. All standing before her.

Warren, Joyce, Victoria, and Kate stand not three feet away from her.

“I have to do this. For all of you. And for Chloe.”

 

***

Max sees herself, stumbling forward. She sees Nathan, with his shiny gun and his fancy red coat. She sees Chloe—

This is all so, so familiar.

“Max…”

Chloe’s voice, quiet but clear. God. All Max could hear in it right now was that panic, that realization that she was in a situation she had no control over, pushing away from the mess she’d found herself in.

Chloe stands, leaning against the bathroom wall, sinks behind her, frozen scene to the side. Max can’t take her eyes away—that crazy blue hair, those punky clothes, her perennial beanie, her piercing blue eyes, the sharp lines of her face. She’s sopping, somehow, hair lank, beanie soaked. Max feels her heart flutter, and thought once again of a future, a future where she and Chloe can go off together, to Portland, to LA, or further, with just each other for company, because who needs anyone else anyway…

It was hard. God, it was hard.

“Hey. Super-Max.”

Max blinks tears away, focusing. 

“Chloe—”

“Look, Max. I know what you’re trying to do. I…I don’t know how I’m here, the last thing I remember is the lighthouse, and the storm, and now this shit,” she pointed at the frozen three by the bathroom door, and her eyes tighten and her voice falters, then goes on, “but. Max, this isn’t the way. I’m responsible for all of this, I fucked everything up, and there’s no way I’m letting you pay the price for that. No fucking way, man.” She’s closer now, looming over Max; Max feels small, awed.

“No you didn’t, Chloe. I was here that first time. I could have stepped out and said something, talked him down, changed things the normal way, the way anyone else would have. But I didn’t. And now it’s too late for that, but I’m gonna do whatever it takes to make it right.” She shakes her head.

“I was scared, Chloe. But now I know what I need to do.”

A long moment, punctuated only by the blood still dripping from her nose. The pain in her head is a constant pressure, its needles striking again and again. She grimaces, bracing herself, but she can only take so much.

 Chloe leans down, until her face is almost level with Max’s. “And you’re not scared now?” Her voice is soft, breaking a little on ‘now.’

“No. I’m still scared. Chloe, I’m so, so scared, but that doesn’t change what I have to do. Now I know that.” She chokes out the words, barely forcing them through stiff lips, but through force of will they come.

“Max…Max, I don’t want you to die. You _can’t_ die. Not like Rachel. Please, Max.” She’s on her knees now, her face inches from Max. It’s easy to see the red around her eyes, the tears on her cheeks. Max feels her chest heave as she sobs. How could she possible leave her?

But she wouldn’t remember. When everything was said and done, Max would just be an old friend, a random surprise tinged with disappointment and absence who came into her life again for one, brief moment. Heartbreaking, to be sure. But there would still be a gunshot. There would still be a dead girl. Jefferson would still rot for his crimes, Kate would survive, Victoria would survive, Warren would survive, Joyce would survive. David, well, maybe he would be less paranoid once the real evil of Blackwell Academy was put behind bars. There would be no one around to fuck up time and space, destroying Arcadia Bay and all its dilapidated beauty. And that dead girl wouldn’t be Chloe.

She _had_ to do this.

“Chloe, I have to. It’s the only way. And me, I—I’ve lived enough in the past few days for a whole lifetime.”

“Max. I can’t let you die because of me.” Panic, desperation, anger.

“It’s my choice.”

It was her only choice.

***

“There’s nothing I can say, is there?” Other-Max’s voice is so small. It feels so strange to feel sorry for herself.

Max’s head pounds, and she wipes away another trail of blood. Blearily, the pats the ground next to her; after a moment, other Max sits.

“It’s—it’s not like we stop existing, you know? And we still had so many amazing days, made so many good friends—we get to keep that. No one else does. And we have so many photographs—so many memories—for them to remember us by. And we…we finally get to be a hero. A real hero, who takes responsibility for the consequences of her actions.” She says it confidently, and she’s surprised when she realizes—she believes it, fully and wholeheartedly. _This_ is her destiny—to help all these people, and Chloe. To give _everyone_ a chance.

“But you’re not giving yourself a chance.” Other-Max seemed to know what she was thinking; that really did make some sense, though.

“I already had mine. And I took it. So did you.” Her gaze meets Other-Max’s, and she’s surprised to find her eyes now free of tears.

“I don’t know if this is right, Max. But I can see why you’re doing it. I can see,” she put her hand on Max’s heart, “how much you feel. And I can help you be strong. I can help you hold on.” Her head lowers, resting itself upon Max’s shoulder. After a moment, Max rests her head against hers, her eyes closed, the tears leaking out. The pain in her head subsides.

A blue butterfly alights atop Max’s head, fluttering its wings in small, hesitant motions.

***

“So this is it, then.”

Joyce, hands on her hips, skirt brushing against a sink.

Max nods.

“And there’s no changing your mind.”

Max shakes her head.

“I’m sorry, Joyce.” She cracks a lopsided smile. “At least, at least you won’t remember any of what happened?”

Joyce shakes her head. “Do you really think it’s all so easily forgotten, Maxine?”

“I—uh, I don’t,” she pauses, wiping blood from her lips, “I don’t know.”

They stare at her, nearly still, yet all eyes so intent, so full of life.

“I love you. All of you. I really, really do. And I’ll miss,” she finds herself sobbing the words, “I’ll miss you. Every one.”

“We’ll miss you, Max.” Kate is crying. She steps forward, catching Max in a tight hug. Max sinks into it.

“Oh, Kate,” she whispers.

A moment later, another pair of arms around her: Joyce. Then Warren, who mutters something about never having had a chance to really learn what she could do. Then Victoria, arms barely brushing against her, but there all the same. Then Principal Wells, Dana, Juliet, then the rest, surrounding her.

Max closes her eyes, and the pain recedes.

A blue butterfly flies from a discarded bucket behind it all, and lands weightlessly on her head.

***

“Max. I can’t lose you.”

Chloe is inches from her face, each breath caressing Max’s cheeks, her lips, the tip of her nose. Her eyes are wide, pleading, Max wants to look away but she can’t. How could she?

“You’re strong, Chloe, _so strong_. You’ve gone through so much, and you’re still here, you’re still _you_ , you’re still beautiful and strong and independent and wild, still everything I loved about you when we were kids.” She points at the other Chloe, pressed up against the wall. “You’ll be her, soon. Mourn me, and move forward.” Max took Chloe’s face in her hands. “I believe in you, more than I’ve ever believed in anyone else.”

“Max,” she whispers. Her eyes are closed, her tears streaming silently. What was she doing, what was she _doing_ to Chloe? This was so hard, so much harder than anything she’d ever done. She puts her forehead against Chloe’s, silent.

“I love you, Max.”

Max sobs, openly, loudly.

“I love you too, Chloe.”

Chloe reaches out, grabs Max by the shoulders. Her eyes are fierce, full of the fiery intensity she had when she stood up to Frank, when she argued with her stepfather, when she told off Max for abandoning her.

“This isn’t the end. I know it. I won’t let this go.”

Max opens her mouth, but Chloe is there, so close, the faint smell of cigarettes and still-sodden cloth. Max has never smelled anything more beautiful.

They pull each other closer, their lips brushing, then pushing, against each other. For a moment in time, they forget. They kiss, and Max feels more alive than ever before, in any of her countless timelines. The pain in her head retreats, then vanishes.

A blue butterfly flits between them, settling on Max’s nose.

***

Max lunges forward. Two cries of surprise. She knows, it knows the time, knows when the shot will be taken, interposes herself. Her face, and Chloe’s, and a cylinder pressed against her back. A brief second; Chloe’s face begins to morph from surprise to recognition. Max tries to smile; maybe she can reassure her.

Desperate, uncontrolled movement. Time, finally arrived.

A butterfly, almost leisurely in the pandemonium, crawls along the barrel of a gun and comes to rest at its termination, small blue wings covering a long shadowy hole.

A bang, a jolt, a flash of searing pain.

A girl on the ground, gasping. Blood, pooling. A boy yelling, babbling, incoherent, weapon discarded on the ground. A girl standing above the body, then kneeling, hands moving quickly but purposelessly.

And, as though from far away: “Max! Max, is that you? Holy shit, holy shit, holy shit, why the fuck would you do that; where did you come from, Max? What were you thinking? Oh, stay with me, stay with me, stay with me…”

Time’s up.

***

Eyes flutter open, slowly. A white room, long filmy cream curtains partially obscuring the window. A clock, a painting of the sea. A few chairs, grey steel bed, a bag with IV fluid hanging from a tall pole. A few ‘Get Well’ balloons, and several vases full of flowers. Some unopened cards on a table. She is…lying down? A nagging feeling of pain in her torso; when she looks down, bandages upon bandages.

“You’re awake. Thank god.” That voice. Where did she know it from?

A woman comes to stand by the bed, rising from a chair in the corner by the windows. Not-quite shoulder length hair, electric blue, under a black beanie. A white tank-top under a black jacket, and ratty dark jeans. Blue eyes, and a face that…

“Ch…Chloe?” Her voice sounds so small. She coughs, lungs protesting at disuse.

“Yeah, Max. I’m here. I’m right here.” With a casual movement, she drags the chair over and settles, backwards, perched. Her hand reaches out, grabs Max’s hand, and Max—Max feels something. A spark, an electric tingle. What…? She finds herself flushing.

“I don’t…how did I get here?” She tries to remember, strains her brain, but it won’t come. A bathroom? But why?

“You don’t remember?” She leans closer, looking at Max with inquisitive eyes. Max shakes her head.

For a moment, Chloe’s hand trembles; she withdraws it. “Well, looks like we got hella catching up to do, don’t we, Max?” She grins. Max smiles back, not sure why. But it feels right.

A long moment of silence. Dust swirls in a thin ray of golden light from the window.

“Hey, Chloe?”

“Yeah, Max?”

“I’m really, really sorry I didn’t call you all these years. Or text, or write, or, or—”

Chloe leans closer again, puts a hand to Max’s lips. “Max. It’s okay.”

Max isn’t sure it is. And yet, why did it feel like she’d had this conversation before, in another lifetime?

Another long, long silence. Max couldn’t think of what to say; why did it feel like there was so much between them, so much that could be said, that needed to be said, that had been said? But whatever was there, it was out of reach. And she was so tired, meds and that dull pain in her torso pulling at her. She fell towards sleep.

Eventually, Chloe speaks, voice soft.

“Hey Max?”

Max breathes a long, shuddering breath. What is it about the way Chloe says her name?

“Yeah?”

“You and I are going to conquer the world together.”

For some reason, nothing had ever sounded better to Max.

Her eyes find their way towards the window, where the curtain has fluttered aside, exposing the wooded hills around Arcadia Bay. For a moment, she thinks she sees a doe, slender and solemn, standing atop the ridge. Its eyes meet hers.

The curtain flutters back, blocking her view. When she can see again, there is only the countryside.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

           

           

 

**Author's Note:**

> the difficulty in indenting paragraphs here is irritating


End file.
